My latest for the Forward: ‘Just File Your Forms, Mort!’

Remember that time when the ZOA’s Mort Klein went on a tear about me, observing that I was “young and inexperienced,” and thus unqualified to critique them? Here’s what I wrote at the time.

It seems that Mort is now presiding over some rather silly attempts at governance over there at the ZOA, as the Forward has beenreporting. They’ve lost their tax exempt status on account of forgetting to file some forms with IRS for three straight years.

If you’ve never worked at a non-profit or served on the board of one, you might not know why this all sounds so completely bonkers. As the executive director of a non-profit organization, I, like Klein, work closely with a board of directors. This qualifies me to explain why all of this is, in fact, completely bonkers.

I feel safe in these assumptions despite Klein’s lack of confidence in me. He published anattack on me in May, in which he called me “young and inexperienced” and my writing “amateurish.” Despite these handicaps, I shall press on, given my meager knowledge of such things.

By the way, the version of this piece that got published is somewhat tamer than my original. I can’t help but include this little gem that we had to cut: “(Note that I did not, in turn, point out that he is a grouch with a constituency of octogenarians and a soapbox that reeks of irrelevance.)”